he privilege
which our democracies still allow to their governors.

Such a colony as he instituted could not but prosper. Its rising
glories were proclaimed in every country of Europe, and the needy and
distressed of all countries sought this realized Utopia. In two years
after Philadelphia was settled, it contained six hundred houses. Peace
was uninterrupted, and the settlement spread more rapidly than in any
other part of North America.

New Jersey, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, were all
colonized by the English, shortly after the settlement of Virginia and
New England, either by emigration from England, or from the other
colonies. But there was nothing in their early history sufficiently
marked to warrant a more extended sketch. In general, the Southern
States were colonized by men who had not the religious elevation of
the Puritans, nor the living charity of the Quakers. But their
characters improved by encountering the evils to which they were
subjected, and they became gradually imbued with those principles
which in after times secured independence and union.

[Sidenote: Settlement of New York.]

The settlement of New York, however, merits a passing notice, since it
was colonized by emigrants from Holland, which was by far the most
flourishing commercial state of Europe in the seventeenth century. The
Hudson River had been discovered (1609) by an Englishman, whose name
it bears, but who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company.
The right of possession of the country around it was therefore claimed
by the United Provinces, and an association of Dutch merchants fitted
out a ship to trade with the Indians. In 1614, a rude fort was erected
on Manhattan Island, and, the next year, the settlement at Albany
commenced, chiefly with a view of trading with the Indians. In 1623,
New Amsterdam, now New York, was built for the purpose of
colonization, and extensive territories were appropriated by the Dutch
for the rising colony. This appropriation involved them in constant
contention with the English, as well as with the Indians; nor was
there the enjoyment of political privileges by the people, as in the
New England colonies. The settlements resembled lordships in the
Netherlands, and every one who planted a colony of fifty souls,
possessed the absolute property of the lands he colonized, and became
_Patroon_, or Lord of the Manor. Very little attention was given to
education, and the coloni